Principal's 'shock' over loss of learning support class

SISTER RITA Wynne, principal of a national school in one of the most disadvantaged areas in the State, was “just in shock” when she got the letter on Tuesday from the Department of Education, telling her to “suppress” the learning support class for pupils with mild learning disabilities.

“It was just pure shock, knowing what the impact will be, knowing the long-term harm.”

Sr Wynne is principal of the Mater Dei Convent National School, behind the Basin Street flats on James’ Street in Dublin.

The 258-pupil school is designated by the Department of Education under the Delivering Equality Of Opportunity In Education scheme as band one school, ie it is in an extremely disadvantaged area. The department says it targets such schools with extra resources to improve literacy, numeracy and attendance rates.

The school has nine pupils diagnosed with a Mild General Learning Disability (MGLD), in a learning support class. When the count was done last September, however, the school had eight MGLD pupils.

The department stipulates a school must have nine MGLD pupils to qualify for a special class.

And so the school, like 118 others in the State, was told on Tuesday: “The retention of the class is no longer warranted. You are requested to make arrangements to cease the operation of MGLD class with effect from 31st August, 2009.”

The letter to Sr Wynne goes on to say the nine pupils’ needs must now be met by the three special needs teachers the school has to support children with lower-threshold needs, of which there are about 30. These three teachers are allocated under a system known as “general allocation” where a school gets one special needs teacher for every 80 pupils. The school will now lose the MGLD teacher, who will be redeployed elsewhere.

“It will be impossible to give the MGLD pupils the one-to-one attention they crave and the ‘general allocation’ system is going to be stretched so thin,” says Sr Wynne.

“This is an area that was devastated by drugs and Aids in the 1980s.

“We had pupils here whose parents had died of drug overdoses. We still have extremely vulnerable children. Some hardly have language, only words, when they come here.” The self-esteem of many is “very, very low”.

“We see the results of early intervention, of intensive learning support.

“Their self-esteem improves and when that improves, their literacy and numeracy improves. You cannot learn if you don’t like yourself. If we lose this class these children are not going to be able to cope. They aren’t going to be literate leaving school. The cost will be at the other end.”